Dear Debbie, page 23
“You know,” I say teasingly, “I don’t have to be at work for another hour. Just saying…”
“Don’t tempt me,” she retorts. “If I don’t go to the gym now, I’m never going to go.”
Since my former workout buddy Jesse is serving two life sentences for murder, I’ve joined Debbie a few times at Titan, but I don’t have time for that right now. “How about if I take you to dinner tonight? Izzy has that sleepover, right?”
She grins at me. “It’s a date.”
She comes over to give me a kiss before she leaves. A year ago, I thought I had lost her, but now it seems like we are closer than we have ever been. I hate all the pain that we have been through, but there’s a reason for everything.
In the end, it worked out for all of us.
JESSE
Nights in prison are the worst.
At home, I had a memory foam mattress with a pillow that contoured to the shape of my head and neck. I had a special hypoallergenic down comforter. I couldn’t sleep without it.
Now I am lying on a thin mattress that is probably an inch or two thick at most. I do have a pillow, but it definitely doesn’t contour to the shape of anything. Like my mattress, it feels more like a board than a pillow. And then there’s the scrawny blanket, which I think I’m allergic to, based on the bumpy rash that has sprung up on every part of my skin that has been touched by the thin material.
If I sleep, which I sometimes do out of sheer exhaustion, half the time I get wrenched out of my slumber by the sounds of the guy on the top bunk snoring like a chainsaw. I’ve never heard anyone snore that loud before. I’ve also never seen anyone with that many tattoos on his body.
There are four of us in this small cell. My bunkmate is called Geho, which I think is his last name. Nobody uses first names here. It’s like back in college, when everyone used to call me Hutch, except it’s not anything like college.
I was transferred to this maximum-security prison last week, which is where I will be spending the rest of my life. I shouldn’t be here. I really shouldn’t be here. Maximum-security prison is not for somebody like me. The other men here are hardened criminals like Geho—they are terrifying. Someone like me should be at one of those minimum-security prisons that looks more like a resort.
But really, I shouldn’t be here at all. Because I didn’t kill anyone.
I woke up at Harley’s apartment, not entirely sure how I got there, and she was dead on the floor from a bullet wound. The gun—my gun—was in my right hand, but I didn’t shoot her. Yes, I know how that sounds. And I know there was gunshot residue on my hand. But I didn’t want to kill Harley. Yes, I was looking to end our relationship, but I didn’t want her dead. I don’t even remember bringing my damn gun to her house. Why would I have done that?
I made a grave mistake though. When I woke up and found Harley murdered, I immediately tried to scrub down the apartment before leaving to get rid of any trace of my presence. The police caught me doing it, and it looked…bad. From that moment, I was their only suspect.
It didn’t help that I had no damn clue what happened. That sounded unbelievable to them. Saying it now, I understand why.
And then, to my complete shock, they accused me of killing Ken Bryant too. I thought it was a joke at first. I didn’t even know he was dead, and I certainly didn’t kill him. But the bullet in his head matched my gun. They found footage of me entering and leaving his house, even though I tried to tell them I was just watering the plants like he asked me to, although those text messages had mysteriously vanished from my phone. Then they said I stole money from him, and that was the last nail in the coffin.
They tried to offer me a deal for pleading guilty, and my lawyer encouraged me to take it. Second-degree murder charges for both Harley and Ken. It meant that I could be eligible for parole in thirty years. But what the hell good was that? I’m forty-seven years old. I decided to roll the dice with a trial, knowing that I was innocent.
I lost my gamble. I’m serving two consecutive life sentences, and I will die in prison. I’m just lucky they don’t have the death penalty in Massachusetts.
Geho shifts in the bunk above mine, and the springs let out a loud groan. As if the snoring wasn’t bad enough, every movement in the bed echoes through the cell. I feel like I’m losing my mind, and I’ve only been here for a week. The idea of spending the rest of my life here…
I don’t deserve any of this. My wife filed for divorce a few months after my arrest, which means she’s not going to be visiting me anytime soon. This was not my first affair, and she was not even the tiniest bit understanding. She wasn’t that amazing as a wife, which is why I was with Harley in the first place, but after a year without being close to a woman, I would give anything for a conjugal visit. My kids hate me too for what I did to the family. I’m alone.
It would be different if I were guilty, like the other men here. Geho actually brags about the guy he stabbed in the neck. But I’m not a bad guy. Yes, I cheated on my wife. A lot of guys have done that. It’s not a capital offense.
Admittedly, I did some things in college that were less than admirable. Sometimes at parties, I’d talk to a girl and offer to get her a drink. I had these ground-up sedatives, and I used to mix them into drinks—jungle juice, rum and Coke, it didn’t matter. Between that and the alcohol, they would be pretty out of it. Then I’d take them to my room, and they didn’t protest too much.
It wasn’t even a big deal though. Most of them barely remembered it. Or if they did, I bet they enjoyed it.
I finally start to drift off, but then I suddenly jolt awake. And when I do, I can’t believe my eyes. Geho and my other two cellmates are standing over me. Each of them has a sock gripped in one hand, with something weighing down the other end. A bar of soap? My stomach churns. The skeleton face etched on Geho’s bald skull is barely visible in the dim light of the cell.
“What’s going on?” I choke out.
“Keep your mouth shut,” Geho hisses at me, “and maybe you’ll get through this alive.”
Even though he gave me a warning, I sputter, “But what did I do?”
Geho responds with a swift punch to my mouth. Instantly, I taste blood. And then a moment later, I feel one of my teeth floating around my mouth.
“This is for Misty Cardon,” he tells me. “Her brother is in Block D, and I owe him a favor.”
Misty Cardon…
That’s a name I haven’t heard in over twenty years and hoped to never hear again. Misty was a girl from Wellesley who I had a great time with until she blew the whole thing out of proportion. I couldn’t believe it when she called me up the next day, ranting about rape. It wasn’t rape, but when I tried to explain it to her, she didn’t want to hear it. She finally agreed to meet with me, and let’s just say I took care of that situation.
So technically, even though I pled innocent in my trial, I couldn’t say I never killed anyone. But nobody found out about Misty. The police asked me a few questions, but it never went any further. I was very, very careful. That’s why it didn’t make any sense that I’d be so sloppy in killing Ken and Harley, but I couldn’t exactly say that in my defense.
I hold up my hands to shield my face. “Please…don’t…”
My pleas are met with a sock slamming into my right side. And then a second blow, this one even harder. I feel my ribs cracking, but the pummeling shows no sign of stopping. Where are the guards? Why aren’t they stopping this?
One of the socks hits me in the jaw, and the pain is blinding. That’s not a bar of soap. It’s something much worse. A rock? A combination lock? I can’t even imagine. Every time one of them slams into me, it’s like a burst of unspeakable agony.
“Please…” I appeal to them one final time as I cling to the brink of consciousness. “Please stop.”
Through the blood dripping into my swelling eyes, I can barely make out Geho’s face, grinning down at me.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “This will be over in a minute.”
DEBBIE
I feel good after Cooper and I make dinner plans for tonight. He’s trying so hard to be a good husband. Everything we went through was hard, but it’s made our marriage so much stronger.
Our therapist keeps telling us that we need to be honest. And I am trying to be honest. But there are some things that I can never tell him.
I can never tell him that I killed his boss, for instance. I can’t tell him that his former best friend, who will be spending the rest of his life in a maximum-security prison, is innocent. At least he’s innocent of killing Ken and Harley.
Cooper doesn’t know that Jesse is the one who raped me. Given how furious he was when I told him what happened, I think he’d agree Jesse got what he deserved, but I didn’t want to make him party to what I had done. There was a tense period when I wasn’t sure how the trial would go, and I was worried Jesse might remember there was a woman in Harley’s apartment just before he passed out. I wanted to make sure Cooper could credibly plead ignorance. If someone was going to jail, it should be me and me alone.
I drive to Titan Fitness to get in a workout before I start my morning. I’ve got a meeting with a company that is looking into having me develop a new dating app for them. It’s going to be a challenge. I love a challenge, especially with the financial resources they will be putting at my disposal. It feels like my brain is finally getting the stimulation it deserves.
When I get to the gym, Cindy is at the front desk. She flashes me a broad smile. “Hi, Debbie.”
“Hi, Cindy.”
She winks at me. “I put a towel on the elliptical machine by the window so nobody else would use it.”
I grin at her. “You’re the best, Cindy.”
As she looks at me, her smile falters slightly. “It’s the least I can do.”
Cindy Bryant believes with all her heart that she owes me everything. Nearly two years ago, she wrote me a letter at Dear Debbie describing the financial abuse by her husband. When I begged her to leave him and told her to contact me, she did exactly that. But it turned out we were more connected than we thought.
I did everything I could to help her. I found her a place to live. I helped her find this job at Titan Fitness. She was doing so well, but her husband, Ken, was making the divorce miserable for her. He was using every trick in the book to deprive her of any financial resources, and he was trying to turn their children against her. He even eventually got me fired, never realizing “Dear Debbie” was the wife of his employee.
I couldn’t let him get away with it. I had to help Cindy. And that’s why I decided to put a bullet in his head and blame it all on Jesse Hutchinson.
I made sure to do it at a time when she had an alibi. And she helped me too. On the night before Harley was shot, she overheard Harley and Jesse’s plans to meet and filled me in. Then on the evening in question, while he was in the gym shower, she spiked his water bottle with the opium I gave her. What can I say? I was inspired by what Jesse did to me all those years ago.
“How is Cooper?” she asks me.
“Great,” I tell her. “The business is going well. And he’s been really sweet lately. We’re going out for a date tonight.”
“Fun.” Cindy grins at me. “You and Cooper should double with me and Ajay sometime.”
Cindy has been dating a really nice guy recently. They’re taking it slow, but I met him once, and I can tell he’s going to treat her right. Even so, a double date might be tempting fate. There’s too much we don’t want our men to know. “Maybe sometime,” I say evasively.
“I’m glad Cooper is treating you well,” Cindy says, “because if he’s not…”
We exchange a meaningful look. “Same,” I say.
Cooper has been really good to me. But I’m not too worried. Cindy and I will look out for each other.
Nobody will take advantage of me ever again.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My daughter is the biggest Melanie Martinez fan.
I really like her music too. But at my age, I’m no longer capable of the same sort of hero worship bestowed on a popular singer by a tween girl. My daughter is obsessed. And that’s how I found myself planted in a front row seat at a Melanie Martinez concert at TD Garden.
Melanie is an incredible performer. My daughter and her friend got out of their seats and were hanging over the railing to get the best view, recording every moment on their iPhones instead of just watching it with their eyeballs. I knew all the songs and loved the performance, but I felt in a different universe from the young people in the audience. And when I looked around me, I saw the same pattern: the excited and energetic teens/tweens standing with their phones in the air, and the tired-looking mothers sitting patiently in their seats. When I looked at those mothers, I could see my own reflected wish that I could be watching this performance from the comfort of my own home rather than in a sticky seat with lines for the ladies’ room that stretched around the crowded stadium.
That was the moment when I first came up with Debbie—the middle-aged housewife struggling through life. Who would do anything for her family.
On that note, I want to thank Melanie Martinez for inspiring both my daughter and myself in completely different ways. I only hope her subsequent concerts will be equally fruitful, since I see many more in my future.
(Also, I found a secret bathroom and told as many of my middle-aged mom cohorts as I could.)
I already dedicated this book to my mother, but I want to thank her for instilling in me a deep love of a satisfying revenge story. She loved this one.
I need to give an extra big thank you to my agent, Christina Hogrebe, who believed in this book so much from the moment she read it. There’s nothing more inspiring than someone who believes in you. The entire JRA team has been incredible—it’s amazing to have so many people working hard on my behalf.
Thank you to Sourcebooks, and especially my editor, Jenna Jankowski, for the most detailed and insightful feedback I could imagine. Mandy Chahal is a publicist extraordinaire—I genuinely don’t know how she does what she does, but I’m so grateful. And thank you to all the editors and cover designers and all the people behind the scenes who made this book come together.
Thank you to my many beta readers: Jenna, Maura, Beth, Rebecca, and Pam, who provided some amazing feedback. Thank you to Val for the help with proofreading.
Thank you to Tara for the insightful sensitivity read. That feedback was so incredibly helpful.
Of course, I have to thank all the moderators of my Facebook group—Emily, Daniel, Nancy, Carrie, and Nikki—who help me with social media so that I have more time to write!
I always have to give a huge thank-you to my readers, both online and the ones who don’t even own a computer. I am so grateful for your support!
And last but not least, I have to thank my kids, who thankfully both allow me to speak to them in the morning again. Well, sometimes.
AFTERWORD
Did you enjoy reading Dear Debbie?
If so, please consider leaving a review on Amazon! Also, check out my website, where you can sign up for my newsletter and get updates on my books:
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And now please enjoy a short excerpt of my book, The Intruder…
THE INTRUDER
There is at least a fifty percent chance that in the next twenty-four hours, the roof of the cabin I’m renting will collapse and kill me.
It’s an apt metaphor for the rest of my life.
There’s not much I can do about my shattered life, but the roof issue is more surmountable. I have been calling my landlord, Rudy, for the last month to try and fix it. Every day, I find a few new shingles on the ground next to the cabin, and one day, I’m fairly sure I’ll sit on my living room sofa and look straight up to see the moon.
And then a few days ago, my calls became more urgent. There’s a storm coming, and if this roof doesn’t get fixed ASAP, I could die. So I told Rudy he needed to get his butt over here—now. I wasn’t nice, but I said what I had to say.
Now, a dozen messages later, Rudy is finally here in the flesh.
As we stand together just outside the cabin, Rudy squints up at my roof with his droopy blue eyes. He’s a scrawny man in his late fifties who looks like he only eats one or two nonliquid meals per day. He scratches the gray stubble on his chin and adjusts the worn gray baseball cap he always wears. As usual, he reeks of cigarette smoke. The stench of it was overpowering when I first moved into the cabin, and it took me a week to get it aired out. It still clings to some of the furniture months later.
“Looks okay to me, Casey,” he says.
My fists clench in barely restrained rage. “How? How does it look okay? There are shingles all over the ground!”
I in fact gathered the flat rectangular shingles into a little pile that I now gesture toward angrily. I don’t entirely understand how a roof is constructed, but I know those things are needed to keep it together. The fact that they are falling off does not bode well for my roof.
At least this is just a rainstorm. Once it snows in a month or so? Forget it. I’m going to wake up one morning in a snowdrift.
I wish I could afford a decent isolated shack in the woods.
“It’s not safe,” I insist.
“You worry too much.” Rudy grabs a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket, and before I can ask him not to, he lights one up and takes a deep drag. I’ve never known him to go more than two minutes without a smoke. “You need to learn to relax a little, Casey.”
You need to learn to relax a little. That was my goal when I moved out to this cabin in The Middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire. I wanted peace and quiet, which is exactly what I got. Even with all the chirping birds and crickets and woodpeckers, it’s so quiet that I’ve got no distractions from thinking about the complete mess I made of my life.
